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have brought this picture of the Virgin in here. I have a desire to in some way make the flesh a sacred thing to you."

His voice had grown soft and reminiscent and he took his hand from his daughter's leg and touched her cheeks and then her hair. He was frankly making love to her now and she had somewhat fallen under his influence. He reached down and taking one of her hands held it tightly.

"We met, you see, your mother and I, at the house of a friend. Although, until a few weeks ago, when I suddenly began to love another woman, I had not for years thought about that meeting, it is at this moment as clear in thy mind as though it had happened here, in this house, to-night.

"The whole thing, of which I now want to tell you the details, happened right here in this town, at the house of a man who was at that time my friend. Now he is dead, but at that time we were constantly together. He had a sister, a year younger than himself, of whom I was fond, but although we went about together a good deal, she and I were not in love with each other. Afterward she married and moved out of town.

"There was another young woman, the very woman who is now your mother, who was coming to that house to visit my friend's sister and as they lived at the other end of town and as my father and mother were away from town on a visit I was asked to visit there too. It was to be a kind of special occasion. The Christmas holidays were coming on and there were to be many parties and dances.

"A thing happened to me and your mother that was not at bottom so unlike the thing that has happened to you and me here to-night," he said sharply. He had grown a little excited again and thought he had better get up and walk. Dropping his daughter's hand he sprang to his feet and for a few minutes walked nervously about. The whole thing, the startled fear of him that kept going and coming in his daughter's eyes and the inert silent presence of his wife, was making what he wanted to do more difficult than he had imagined it would be. He looked at his wife's body lying silent and motionless on the bed. How many times he had seen the same body, lying just in that way. She had submitted to him long ago and had been submitting to the life in himself ever since. The figure his mind had made, 'an ocean of silence,' fitted her well. She had always been silent. At the best all she had learned from life was a half-resentful habit of submission. Even when she talked to him she did not really